Google's parent Alphabet misses Wall Street view

April 21 (Reuters) - Google's parent Alphabet Inc
missed Wall Street targets for first-quarter profit and revenue
on Thursday, driving shares of the Web search company down more
than 4 percent in late trading on Thursday.

Alphabet, the world's No.2 publicly traded company by market
capitalization, said consolidated revenue rose to $20.26 billion
from $17.26 billion. That was slightly below the $20.37 billion
analyst consensus, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Earnings per share of $7.50, excluding one-time items, missed
the analyst target of $7.97.

Rosenblatt Securities analyst Martin Pyykkonen said the
effect of foreign currency was worse for Alphabet than expected.

"If there had been a little better foreign currency
translation, it would have been better than the Street
consensus," he said.

On a conference call after the earnings announcement,
Alphabet Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat said, "As a result
of the ongoing strength of the U.S. dollar, we realized a
negative currency impact on our revenues year-over-year of $762
million, or $593 million after the benefit of our hedging
program. Holding currency constant to prior periods, our total
revenue grew 23%" year-over-year and declined 4% sequentially
reflecting holiday seasonality."

Cost-per-click, or the average price of online ads, fell 9
percent in the quarter ended March 31, although Pyykkonen said
some analysts had been expecting a decline of 10 percent.

Google's advertising revenue increased 16.2 percent to
$18.02 billion, while the number of ads, or paid clicks, rose 29
percent, the company said.

Losses increased at the company's Other Bets business, which
includes its broadband business Google Fiber, home automation
products Nest, self-driving cars and X - the company's research
facility that works on "moon shot" ventures.

The loss widened to $802 million, up from $633 million a
year earlier. Revenue rose to $166 million from $80 million.

Alphabet's net income rose to $4.21 billion, or $6.02 per
Class A and B share and Class C capital stock, from $3.52
billion, or $5.10 per share.

The company's shares fell to $744.21 in after hours trade
from a close of $780.
(Reporting by Narottam Medhora in Bengaluru and Deborah Todd in
San Francisco; Editing by Peter Henderson, Savio D'Souza and
Bernard Orr)